Graham Potter second in top 10 of Premier League managers doomed to fail
None of these guys had a cat in hell’s chance. Their P45s were in the outbox. The Grim Reaper was at the door from day dot.
Three of this top 10 of managers doomed to fail took up and lost their posts in the last two seasons…
10) Rene Meulensteen (Fulham)
In his book ‘4 Per Nielsen – Brondby for evigt? (Brondby for ever?)’ Soren Sorgenfri Frederiksen recounts the story of Rene Meulensteen asking his Brondby players what their spirit animal was ahead of a Uefa Cup first-leg match against Eintracht Frankfurt.
‘When Rene has asked all 11 players, he says: “OK we have pretty good cover – we have tigers, lions: we are clever, we have muscle, we are strong, and so on. We cannot lose today.”‘
Brondby lost 4-0 and got two red cards. We can only speculate as to how Dimitar Berbatov, Damien Duff, Adel Taarabt and Darren Bent may have responded if asked to inhabit their alter egos in a clash with Hull City. But a 6-0 defeat suggests not well, and what is absolutely clear from Meulensteen’s 17-game stint at Fulham is that spirit animals can’t defend for sh*t. They conceded 37 goals.
9) Sammy Lee (Bolton)
Little Sam turned bride for a very brief spell as Sam Allardyce upped sticks for Newcastle, but should have remained the bridesmaid.
Lee won just one of his 11 games in the hot seat at Bolton, then perched once more on tepid chairs to the side of Rafa Benitez at Liverpool and Ronald Koeman at Southampton, before he became little to Allardyce’s large once more, very briefly with England, then at Crystal Palace, Everton and West Brom.
8) Tony Adams (Portsmouth)
‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’ is essentially the philosophy by which Tony Adams became Harry Redknapp’s successor at Fratton Park. Having been Redknapp’s assistant for two years, Adams asked the board if he could replace his mentor, who had answered the call of Tottenham.
After Redknapp had guided Pompey to consecutive top-half finishes in the Premier League and the FA Cup title, Adams – who had no managerial experience save his brief stint as assistant – won just four of his 21 games in charge.
7) Unai Emery (Arsenal)
Emery won 1.85 points per game in his time at the Arsenal helm, which is only slightly less than the legend who came before him and the young upstart who threatens similar glory, with Arsene Wenger and Mikel Arteta on 1.95 and 1.94 respectively.
The Spaniard led the Gunners to fifth in his only full season, a feat Wenger failed to better in his last two campaigns, while Arteta’s first two seasons saw them finish eighth. That, along with Emery’s fine work at Aston Villa, does make you wonder whether Arsenal may have thrived had their fans managed to put up with his pronunciation of ‘good evening’. That said, sacking him looks like a pretty decent call now.
6) Roy Hodgson (Liverpool)
Having remarkably led Fulham to the UEFA Cup final in 2010, Hodgson was tasked with returning Liverpool to past glories. It’s fair to say that the Reds fans weren’t all that convinced by a manager whose side had finished 12th the season before he arrived, albeit with that European run.
And the mid-to-lower-table Premier League specialist couldn’t hope to win the fans over by blaming poor performances on them for their lack of support.
Losing Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano as he came through the door certainly wouldn’t have helped but the arrival of Luis Suarez should have eased the pain rather more than it did.
5) Andre Villas-Boas (Chelsea)
Portuguese? Check. Young? Check. Insignificant/no playing career? Check. Porto manager? Check. Treble winner? Check. Alas, Villas-Boas was no Jose Mourinho.
While his predecessor at Stamford Bridge took the Premier League by storm, Villas-Boas’ disruption was seemingly confined to the Chelsea squad, as he demoted club legends to the reserves, where they stewed at being cast aside by the supposed authority figure who had less hair on his chest than they did.
Sacked in March and by May Chelsea had won another FA Cup and their first Champions League trophy.
4) Nuno Espirito Santo (Tottenham)
Nuno was fifth choice behind Mauricio Pochettino, Paulo Fonseca, Gennaro Gattuso and Antonio Conte, who decided he actually did want the job after his between-jobs-buffer was sacked after 17 games. Nuno was in that sense a means of granting Conte a bit of extra holiday.
The former Wolves boss was handed just a two-year contract and having asked for a midfielder and back-up for Harry Kane, was given funds for neither. New sporting director Fabio Paratici took time out of his busy book cooking schedule to scowl from behind Nuno on the touchline, presumably sending scouting reports to Conte on his sun lounger as they prepared for his inevitable arrival after the stopgap was relieved of his duties.
3) Rafael Benitez (Everton)
As slaps to fans’ faces go, this was a doozy. Not only had they lost one of the greatest managers in history in Carlo Ancelotti, the Everton board decided to replace him with a man whose face had adorned dartboards in public houses to the north of Stanley Park.
‘We forgive you, Rafa’ signs could be seen at Stamford Bridge as the Chelsea fans managed to put past grievances behind them during the Spaniard’s stint with them, but not so at Everton, whose fans instead hung ‘Benitez not welcome’ banners on the gates to Goodison Park as the Liverpool rivalry predictably proved too much to bear.
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2) Graham Potter (Chelsea)
A new dawn at Chelsea. New owners, new players, a new manager and a new long-term strategy. Todd Boehly and his Clearlake consorters wanted a legacy. No more obviously brilliant managers who win stuff all the time. Thomas Tuchel? No thanks.
But actually, why not wait a bit to sack the obviously brilliant manager so that the relative novice replacing him doesn’t have the benefit of a pre-season with this group of completely random players that have been assembled as much so other clubs can’t have them as Chelsea actually wanting or needing them.
Oh, and you know that over-the-hill striker signed five days before Tuchel was sacked who’s a famously bad dressing room influence? He’ll score all the goals, right? Cool.
1) David Moyes (Manchester United)
It would have been fascinating to see how Sir Alex Ferguson might have done had he stayed for one more season. Despite Moyes having a Premier League-winning squad to work with, many of those players were past their sell-by date.
Paul Scholes retired with his gaffer. Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic stuck around for one final season but had essentially checked out. The constant repair works on Robin van Persie in 2012-13 as he won United the title took their toll under Moyes.
He couldn’t say no having been told by Ferguson that he would be the next Manchester United manager, but was also probably aware that the chalice he had been handed was about as poisonous as it could possibly have been. Not only was Moyes replacing the greatest manager in Premier League history, he was also taking over at a point when the greatest rebuild was required.
Moyes admittedly didn’t have to spend all of his pocket money on Marouane Fellaini, but £30m also definitely wasn’t enough pocket money.
